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Page 552
damaging to those he ruled, the extravagance in war and in giving were "honorable." That John lacked these characteristics was not seen as an advantage. Worse yet, John inherited the fiscal and political disaster Richard left when he died. John was unlucky. He reaped the whirlwind that Richard had sowed, and he did not have the personality for riding whirlwinds.
Modern historians ameliorate John's military incompetence by pointing out that he did win battles and that he often lost them or was forced into retreat by the defection of his supporters. This is true. It is also probably the strongest indictment that can be brought against John's military ability or personality, or both. Never did Richard's nobles refuse to fight or desert him. They believed in him, trusted him, and died for him when he was wrong. Obviously John's did not believe in him, did not trust him, and were not willing to die for him. This behavior was relatively consistent over a period of more than 15 years and must be meaningful. There can be no avoiding the fact that John's subjects did not like him or respect him.
The distaste for King John cannot be traced to political causes, and this seems to induce surprise in modern historians. But the people John reigned over were not historians looking back at the development of a nation. They were concerned with their own codes and mores. The contemporary hatred for John was based not in faults in the king but in "faults" in the man himself. John murdered subjects from time to timebut so did Richard. The difference in the reactions to the act brings us back to the word "honor." Richard murdered his subjects in fits of rage or after open challenge. He did it in person, confessed, and grieved loudly after the act. John murdered by stealth, by the hand of an assassin, and denied complicity. This was "dishonorable."
Moreover, John preyed upon women. In the late 12th and through the 13th century, the status of women was rising; Queen Eleanor (John's mother) had brought the

 
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